Instructions

Fry the bacon in a large pot over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the fat is rendered and the bacon is crisp, 4-5 minutes. Add the olive oil, onions and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the carrots and garlic, stirring constantly, and cook 1 minute more. Add the diced tomatoes (with their juices), chicken broth, lentils, thyme, bay leaves, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Cover partially, reduce heat to low and simmer until the lentils are tender, 45-50 minutes (less for common lentils). Fish out bay leaves and discard.

Use an immersion blender to purée the soup until the broth is slightly thickened, or to desired consistency. (Do not purée too much or the soup will get too thick, and you’ll lose the integrity of the lentils.) If you don’t have an immersion blender, transfer about 2 cups of the soup to a blender and purée until smooth, then return the blended soup to the pot. Garnish with fresh chopped parsley if desired and serve. (Note: The soup may thicken as it sits; thin with a bit of water if necessary.)

Eggs are one of the most economical ways to increase the nutrients in your family’s diet. Eggs are full of vitamin D, vitamin A, vitamin E, omega 3 fatty acids, beta carotene, cholesterol (which is good for you), and saturated fat (also good for you).

Why Pastured Eggs?
I don’t just buy any eggs. I only buy pastured eggs from local farmers who keep their chickens outdoors and let them roam around in the sun, eating bugs. I also only buy eggs from farmers who do not feed their chickens soy.

From what I had read, organic free range eggs were the best.

I knew supermarket eggs were bad. The chickens are crowded in cages. They don’t even have room to move or turn around. They’re pumped with antibiotics and fed genetically modified feed. They’re sick and very unhealthy — which is why it’s so common to find salmonella with factory farm chickens and eggs.

So I always bought “organic” “free range” eggs. It was about a year and a half ago that I discovered truly pastured eggs. The definition of “free range” or “cage free” is that they give the chickens “access to the outdoors”. What does that mean? Uh, nothing. Do they really go outside? No, usually not. They’re crowded into large, windowless sheds and they rarely ever go outside.

They may be “organic” and “cage free” but these are not truly healthy birds. Since they’re not given antibiotics, they are very susceptible to disease. The people who work at these “big organic” chicken farms have to wear cleanroom suits when they go in to visit the birds.

Here’s the thing: chickens need to be outdoors to get vitamin D from the sun. Chickens are also not vegetarians. You always see egg crates boasting a “vegetarian diet”. Guess what, folks? Chickens are supposed to eat bugs and worms. That’s where they are supposed to get their protein!

It was around that time that I discovered this article, Meet Real Free Range Eggs on the Mother Earth News website. They did a study in which they compared the nutrients in real pastured eggs to supermarket eggs.

5 times more vitamin D
2/3 more vitamin A
2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
3 times more vitamin E
7 times more beta carotene

But What About the Cost?
It’s true that pastured eggs cost more. But isn’t it obvious that it is worth it? You’d have to eat 5 supermarket eggs to get the same amount of vitamin D from one pastured egg. You may be able to buy a dozen eggs for a buck or two at the grocery store, but you get what you pay for. The national average for pastured eggs is about $4-5 per dozen. However, they are worth that in terms of nutrient density.

I did a little figuring to see how economical pastured eggs really are.

Let’s say you pay $5 for a dozen pastured eggs. That means each egg costs about 42 cents. A “large” egg is about 2 ounces, so you’re paying 20 cents per ounce.

Twenty cents, people. How does that compare to other foods of a similar nutrient density? (The prices are based on what we pay here in California.)

Where Do You Find Real Pastured Eggs?
When I made the switch from free range eggs to real pastured eggs, I had no idea where to get them. I had no idea that they were right under my nose at the local farmer’s market. (I’m pretty sure one of them does feed his birds soy, so I only buy from the other two, Rocky Canyon and Healthy Family Farms.)

1. Have Fun

This is the most basic and easiest way to reduce your stress level. It sounds simple, but many people don’t practice it enough. To me, this means spending time with my kids, cooking, climbing mountains, talking with my wife, or even biohacking. I’ll cover this more later in the series, but for new realize that it’s common for adults to forget to spend time having fun. Family and career considerations – and the ever-present email waiting for replies – can suck the fun out of life. It’s your job to schedule fun time the same way you schedule meetings.

2. Synchronize Your Heart & Brain with Heart Math

This is my “Honda daily driver” of brain upgrades. There are more expensive, sexier ways to hack your stress, but nothing comes close the the Heart Math technology when it comes to reliably training your heart and brain to work together. A healthy, relaxed person has high heart rate variability (HRV) which means that amount of time between each heart beat is different with each beat. Low heart rate variability is a sign of intense stress. When your sympathetic nervous system is under stress, your body will release stress hormones, and your heart develops an inflexible unchanging beat. This state is correlated with a host of diseases and even overall mortality from all causes.

The emWave2 is a device smaller than an iPhone which uses infrared sensors to calculate your HRV. When you have low HRV, a red light appears. Your job is to do everything possible to make the light turn green while following the device’s guidance, which steers you to breathe in and out every five seconds. You can also listen to music to help, meditate (See #3), or do anything else you can think of that doesn’t make you move around a lot. Spending at least ten minutes every day working with your heart rate variability is transformative. Doing it before bed can fix sleep problems, and it can help with emotional eating, daily stress, and even physical performance. This technology changed my life and career. It is simple to do and everyone I’ve ever known who did it for a month had huge positive changes in the way they felt and the way they treated others simply because they learned to consciously control their fight or flight responses. This stuff belongs in every school.

3. Meditation

The goal of meditation is to become more mindful, be more directive and choiceful with your attention and responsive (not reactive) to your thoughts. Meditation allows you to identify, observe, and master your emotions. Instead of blindly reacting to outside stimuli, you can optimize your thought process and react as you see fit.

You can reduce the amount of stress you experience through mindfulness of your thoughts and feelings. At the same time, you become better able to cope with the stress you still face. When you learn to meditate right (hint: Heart Math is a head start), the stressful voices in your head start to silence themselves.

In fact, mine are gone. There is silence when I want it, available on demand, at any time. No songs stuck in my head, no critical voices from my past, no worrying. Just me.

4. Pranayama Yoga

“When the Breath wanders, the mind is unsteady, but when the Breath is still, so is the mind still.”

– Hatha Yoga Pradipika

You need to learn how to breathe. Most people suck in air using the intercostal muscles of their chest. The right way to breathe is with your diaphragm, also known as belly breathing. This kind of breathing helps you relax and control your heart rate.

The best way to describe this type of breathing is to describe Pranayama Yoga.

Pranayama is the art of Yoga breathing. One of the five aspects of yoga is breath control. According to pranayama yoga, there are three kinds of breathing:

High Breathing.

This is also known as clavicular, or collarbone breathing. This means you are breathing primarily with the upper chest and lungs. High breathing is shallow and inefficient, since a large amount of oxygen fails to reach the lower lung. This is the worst form of breathing, and it is the one you revert to when stressed or angry.

Low Breathing

This is the best possible form of breathing. It utilizes your lower abdomen and diaphragm to pull air in and out of your lungs. To practice low breathing, breathe into your stomach as you suck air through your nose, and your stomach will compress first on your exhale, following the breath up. Your chest and shoulder blades will not move much – only your stomach.

Middle Breathing

As you might expect, this is somewhere in between high and low breathing. It’s “better” than the former, but not as good as the latter.

There are four phases of proper breathing.

1. Inhale (Puraka in yoga-speak)

This should be a continuous, long breath.

2. Pause & hold (Abhyantara Kumbhaka)

This is a pause before exhaling. You should not move any muscle during this process.

3. Exhale (Rechaka)

This should be a controlled, relaxed, continuous exhale.

4. Pause After Exhaling (Bahya Kumbhaka)

This is just like the first pause and starts the cycle over again.

Controlled breathing is a great first step to mastering stress. Even a few minutes a day, done for 2 weeks, can have amazing effects. Add it to your morning routine and see what happens.

You can use this technique any time you experience discomfort or tension. Instead of kicking a trash can or thinking dark thoughts about that screaming baby in the airport when your flight gets delayed, take a few slow deep breaths and put your focus only on what it is like to breathe. You’ll feel better – I guarantee it.

Breathe in to the diaphragm through the back of the throat for 4 seconds

Hold for 4 seconds

Breathe out slowly through the back of the throat for 6 seconds

Hold empty breath for 2 or more seconds

At first, it is common to feel like you’re going to die when you hold your lungs without air in them for even a second or two. Your brain rewires itself to be calmer when you practice slow breathing.

5. Art of Living

The Art of Living Foundation is a global resource for people trying to reduce stress. Their key principle is that “Unless we have a stress-free mind and a violence-free society, we cannot achieve world peace.” It was founded in 1981 by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, a spiritual leader who in 2010, was named the fifth most influential person in India by Forbes Magazine.

Their introductory course is focused on simple breathing exercises to give you “more energy to handle the stress of daily life.” There are workshops all around in the world where Art of Living practitioners work with you to perfect your breathing. If you are interested in trying the course, click here.

It’s a simple, repeatable method used by 25 million people worldwide to reduce stress, including severe stress like that found in war survivors. It works, and it is not a cult or a religion in any way, or I wouldn’t recommend it.

Consume supplements in their highest performance form.

Artificial forms of nutrients are not as effective as the real thing. When you do supplement, you should still try to get them from whole food sources. Isolated nutrients often compete for the same absorption pathways. For example, iron and calcium inhibit the absorption of one another, but synthetic nutrients are often damaging. For these reasons, nutrients should be consumed in their most natural form possible.

When in doubt – go without.

There is always a risk with supplements. Even the most natural forms can contain high levels of heavy metals, contaminants, and byproducts from processing. Food is not guaranteed to be free from these substances, but it’s far less likely to contain them. In many cases, the biggest downside to taking supplements you don’t need is simply expensive urine, but in other cases it’s better to go without than to take something you shouldn’t have.

What Supplements You Should Take

These are the basic supplements that most everyone should be taking.

For each nutrient, you will get a:

Dosage recommendation.

The correct form it should be taken in.

The time it should be taken.

A recommended brand.

Here are the ten nutrients (almost) everyone should supplement with.

Vitamin D

Magnesium

Vitamin K2

Vitamin C

Iodine

Krill Oil

Vitamin A

Selenium

Copper

Folinic Acid with B12

Vitamin D

Vitamin D isn’t just the most important supplement – it is possibly the most important biohack. Vitamin D acts on over 1000 different genes and serves as a substrate for sex hormones like testosterone, human growth hormone, and estrogen. It moderates immune function and inflammation. It assists in calcium metabolism and bone formation. It’s no coincidence this is one of the few vitamins humans can make on their own. Without it – we’d be dead. It’s true that you can get adequate vitamin D from sun exposure, but for non-nudist non-equatorial dwellers it’s not enough. If you’re getting adequate vitamin A, it’s almost impossible to overdose on D.

Magnesium

This is almost as important as vitamin D, and almost as under appreciated. Magnesium is used in over 300 enzymatic processes, including all of those involved in ATP production. It’s also vital for proper transcription of DNA and RNA.

Almost all Americans are deficient in magnesium. The majority of people don’t meet the RDA, which is already too low. Due to soil depletion and poor farming practices, it’s almost impossible to get enough magnesium from your diet. Without a doubt – everyone should supplement with magnesium.

Vitamin K1 is the kind of vitamin K found in leafy vegetables, and vitamin K2 is the kind found in grass-fed animal products. Humans don’t convert vitamin K1 into K2 efficiently. Ruminant animals like cows and sheep convert K1 into K2 in their stomachs. This is another reason you should eat grass-fed animals, because they can only get K1 from grass – not grains.

There are two subsets of vitamin K2: MK-4, and MK-7. MK-4 is the kind shown to produce the most benefit, but MK-7 is still important. You should consume a total of at least 2,000mcg per day of K2, at least 100mcg of which should be the MK-7 form.

Dose: 2,000mcg / day (100mcg MK-7 form)

Forms: MK-4, and MK-7

Time Taken: Doesn’t really matter, but it’s best to take this with vitamin D, so morning is best.

Recommended Brand: Life Extension

Vitamin C

This is one of the safest, most effect supplements you can take. Vitamin C is needed for collagen and connective tissue formation. It’s used to manufacture glutathione, the most powerful antioxidant in the body. Vitamin C can enhance immune function and help quench free radical damage. Studies have shown you can take up to 120 grams of vitamin C a day with no side effects(besides loose stool).

Some fruits and vegetables are high in vitamin C, but cooking and storage methods can deplete vitamin C content. Supplementation with at least 500mg per day is optimal. You should take a lot more if you are suffering from chronic infections or healing from injury.

Dose: 1-2 grams / day

Forms: Ascorbic acid crystals or time release capsules.

Time Taken: Morning and evening, but it’s best not to take it after a workout as isolated antioxidants can negate the insulin sensitivity gained from exercise.

Recommended Brand: Solaray

Iodine

Iodine is crucial for proper thyroid function and metabolism. It also enhances immune function and prevents brain damage. Iodine deficiency is widespread, so supplementation is wise. You can get some iodine from seafood, but risk of deficiency is still high. Iodized salt won’t get you optimal levels. The toxic limit for iodine is also extremely high, meaning you can take a lot. A good starting point is 1mg / day from kelp powder or as potassium iodide.

Dose: 1mg / day

Forms: Kelp powder or potassium iodide capsules

Time Taken: Doesn’t matter.

Recommended Brand: Pure Encapsulations potassium iodide

EPA/DHA (Krill oil)

This is a tricky one. Small doses of high quality fish oil reduce inflammation, improve brain function, and even enhance muscle growth, but poor quality or high doses can cause more problems than they help to solve. Not all fish oil is created equal. Most of the brands you are likely to buy at your local grocery are contaminated, oxidized, and low potency. If you can’t find a good fish oil – you’re much better off avoiding it all together.

That’s why I recommend krill oil over fish oil altogether. Krill is more stable and it is phosphorylated, meaning it’s easier for your brain to use. It also comes with astaxanthin, a potent antioxidant.

There are real benefits to taking EPA and DHA, but most of these are strongest if your diet is deficient in omega-’3s, or too high in omega-6’s. If you’re eating a Bulletproof Diet, this won’t be a problem. Humans only need 350mg of DHA and EPA a day to have optimal brain function. If you’re eating grass-fed meat and wild caught fish, this is easily obtainable. If you can’t find grass-fed meat or wild caught seafood, you should supplement with at least 1000mg of krill oil per day.

In addition to these basic supplements, there are a few you should also consider taking.

Vitamin A

This is essential if you aren’t eating organ meats like beef liver, kidney, and heart (you should). Vitamin A is an important cofactor for numerous metabolic reactions and bodily functions. A quarter of Americans consume less than half the RDA, which is already too low. An important thing to remember is that you can’t get vitamin A from plants. Plants don’t have vitamin A, they have beta-carotene. Beta carotene is poorly converted into vitamin a which is why some populations develop vitamin A deficiency despite consuming far more than they should have required. Sorry vegetarians and vegans, carrots don’t count.

Dose: 10,000-15,000 IU / day.

Forms: Retinol (A good source of vitamin A is cod liver oil, which also has vitamin D)

Selenium

Selenium is a heavy metal with numerous beneficial effects on the body. It boosts immune function, prevents cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and protects against thyroid dysfunction. It is possible to get enough selenium from wild caught fish and animal products, but most people don’t. If you can’t find real meat, you should supplement with 200mcg per day. Be careful, too much selenium can cause negative health consequences. Take 200 micrograms, not milligrams.

Dose: 200mcg / day

Forms: Se Methyl Selenocysteine or selenomethionine

Time Taken: Doesn’t matter.

Recommended Brand: Life Extension

Copper

Copper is needed for proper vascular and heart function. Most of the U.S. Is woefully deficient in copper, consuming only .8mg per day. This is worrying since less than 1mg per day is enough to cause heart attacks. Copper intake has fallen over the last century due to modern farming and dietary practices. Modern fruits, vegetables, and conventional meats are low in copper, containing 75 percent less than they used to.

Luckily, beef and lamb liver have a massive amount of copper. If you’re eating at least four ounces of beef liver per week, you can meet your copper needs. Other good sources of copper include cocoa (dark chocolate – look for low toxin Bulletproof Chocolate Powder soon!), cashews, and lobster. If you aren’t eating beef or lamb liver weekly, you should supplement with at least 1mg per day.

Dose: 1mg / day

Forms: Capsule

Time Taken: Doesn’t matter.

Recommended Brand: Life Extension

B-12 and folinic acid

Most people are deficient in B12. B12 can protect against dementia, increase immune function, maintain nerves, and regenerate cells. B12 lowers homocysteine and protects against atherosclerosis. It’s necessary for maintaining methylation reactions that repair DNA and prevent cancer. One of the most crucial areas for B12 is the brain.

Folate deficiency can also cause mental symptoms, although B12 is more likely to be a problem. Folate and B12 are both required for mental function, and a deficiency in one produces a deficiency in the other, but folate will not correct a B12 deficiency in the brain. If you make the mistake of treating B12 deficiency with folate, you can get permanent brain damage. (hear that, vegans?) Likewise, high amounts of folate without adequate B12 can cause neurological conditions. That’s why I take them together.

Dose: >5mg of methylcobalamin or hydroxycobalamin and >800mcg of folate (5-MTHF or folinic acid, NOT folic acid)

Forms: Capsule

Time Taken: Doesn’t matter.

Recommended Brand: varies

Supplementation is something everyone should do, but how much depends on your diet and other lifestyle factors. Athletes need more of some supplements than other people. In general, you should try to get as much nutrition from food as possible. You should consume nutrients in their most natural form. When you do supplement – you get what you pay for. If you aren’t wiling to spend money on quality supplements – you’re compromising your health and it will cost more in the long term.

What is The Wild Diet?

Simply, The Wild Diet suggests that we take a deep breath and start eating real food again.

We once had access to an immense variety of seasonal foods from small, local sources. Now we have access to very few varieties of very few foods from a massive industrial system often thousands of miles from where we live.

It’s important to note the few staples of the Standard American Diet – namely corn, wheat, and soy – are not produced in such massive quantities because they’re healthy. They’re produced because they make money for rich people.

Modern food manufacturers have overwhelmed grocery store shelves with foods that are nutrient poor, rotten, spoiled, dead, old, and contaminated with antibiotics, chemicals, and growth hormones.

GMO’s are creepy, artificial flavors are horrifying, and selective breeding has unleashed some freakish foodstuffs upon the general public. If selective breeding can do this to a wolf, imagine what they can do to a tomato.

Monoculture is raping the land, generating obscene wealth for a select few, and producing “foods” that make us fat and sick. We need to return to a system that works with the land, with nature, and with our own physiology and spirit.

Sure, it takes work to make (or find) fresh, wild, natural food these days. But the benefits for the health of our bodies and the land we inhabit are undeniable.

Here’s a small example of what you eat when you don’t pay attention…

Think you’re better off eating foods with “natural flavor”? Chew on this: secretions from the anal glands of beavers produce a bitter, smelly, orange-brown substance known as castoreum that is used extensively in vanilla and raspberry flavoring. It’s legally labeled as “natural flavoring.” – The Wild Diet

This is the state of affairs when you trust food manufacturers, my friends. I hope you like beaver butt.

The Wild Diet is a Paradigm for Making Healthy Decisions

The Wild Diet is not a dietary bootcamp; it is a template for making healthy eating and lifestyle decisions. But as a rule, the closer you can get to eating plants and animals that would thrive in their wild and natural habitat, the better.

Eat plants and animals that were recently alive and well. Heirloom and heritage plants and animals are in themselves healthier as a result more nutritious then their industrial counterparts. Imagine grain is expensive, hard physical work is necessary, and sweets are a treat.

And don’t be afraid to get some dirt under your fingernails. It’s good for you.

The Pick-Me-Ups — Your Action Plan

1. Rev metabolism. After a few dates with some dumbbells, both guys and gals will notice an increase in resting metabolic rate . And with the right diet, routine lifting may even help shed a few pesky pounds more effectively than cardio alone.

2. Tone up. Whether the goal is bulking up or leaning out, there’s a lifting regimen that will deliver optimal results. Remember that muscle mass also declines as we age, and while weight training can be effective for virtually all ages, consider picking up those dumbbells in your body’s prime.

3. Bulletproof the body. Lifting weights is key to staying injury-free. A little weighted action works out the tendons and ligaments that support our muscles— making sports and other daily movin’ and groovin’ worry-free!

4. Fight the blues. Need a new happy pill? Research suggests resistance training can release happiness-helping endorphins and help keep anxiety at bay .

6. Beat out boredom. Muscles need time to recover, so switching up that strength training routine is a must. Give the legs some love on one day, and follow with upper-body action the next. Working out will never get repetitive!

7. Boost self-esteem. Exercise the ego: Lifting can help improve a person’s body image . Plus, it feels great to track progress and see gains in weight and reps.

8. Up that I.Q. Hitting the books isn’t the only way to pass that exam— strength training can also sharpen the mind (no pencil sharpener necessary).

9. Strengthen bones. Grab some weights to avoid getting stuck in a sling. Those bones will toughen up, which will lower the risk for fractures . After all, not everyone’s up for chugging three glasses of milk a day.

10. Lose the limitations. Drop down and give me 20— anywhere. Resistance training doesn’t require a gym membership, let alone a set of dumbbells or fancy machines. There are plenty of ways to strength train right at home with little to no equipment.

11. Perk up that ‘tude. Unhappy at work? Studies show lifting can have psychological benefits, including feeling more positive at the office . No need to call in “sick” ever again!

12. Increase flexibility. There are other ways to get limber besides yoga (although we do love a little downward dog). Over time, resistance training can help improve flexibility; ladies, lifting every other day for eight weeks is all it takes. .

13. Cut down cancer risk. One study found strength training three times a week for six months led to reduced oxidative stress, which can lessen our cancer risk. So get lifting and fuel up with antioxidants to double-team disease.

14. Amp up productivity. Losing focus at work? Squeezing in some desk-side reps can help make deadlines a breeze while fine-tuning those time management skills.

16. Catch those zzz’s with ease. There are many well-known remedies to help us fall asleep— like sipping herbal tea and taking a hot shower. And while exercise in general has been shown to help make snoozing a breeze, studies suggest weight lifting in particular can lead to a better night’s sleep .

17. Build trust. We often need spotters, especially at the bench press (a bar to the face or neck is never good). Naturally, relying on others for our own safety in the gym can instill trust in a kick-butt kind of way.

18. Jump-start power. Eager to improve performance in the gym and on the track? An extra dose of dumbbells can really work fast-twitch muscles, the speedy muscle fibers responsible for generating power.

19. Sneak in some cardio. Hate the dreadmill? A fast-paced resistance workout can keep the heart rate up and can even count as cardio (provided those sets move along at a quick enough clip).

20. See results… fast. Need one final incentive to hit the weights? Strength training can offer speedy results. It takes two to three weekly sessions (for less than a month!) to see muscles shape up. Can’t bench press 200 lbs? Not to worry: Lifting lighter weights can also be effective at building muscle, as long as those lifts are tough enough to cause muscle fatigue.

What is It, How It Works, and What It is Used For

You make activated charcoal by burning a source of carbon such as wood, debris, or better yet, coconut shells. The high temperature removes all the oxygen and activates it with gases like steam. What is produced is a highly adsorbent material with millions of tiny pores that capture, bind, and remove poisons, heavy metals, chemicals, and intestinal gases which have thousands of times more weight than the charcoal itself. The porous surface has a negative electric charge that attracts positively charged unwanted toxins and gas. Toxicology studies show activated charcoal to be harmless to human health.

General detoxification – Toxins from low quality, processed food, and environmental pollution are real problems. It is important to help your body eliminate them to promote a healthy digestive system and brain. Chronic exposure to toxins produces cellular damage, allergic reactions, compromised immunity, and more rapid aging. Regular use of activated charcoal can remove unwanted toxins from your body, leaving you feeling renewed and more vibrant, often in minutes! Gut toxins quickly become brain toxins if you don’t eliminate them. Whether or not you are feeling under the weather, activated charcoal helps unwanted bacteria move through your system faster before they spread and multiply, helping you feel better faster.

Relieve digestive issues, gas, and bloating – After digesting foods like beans, the decomposition process from bacteria in your body creates byproducts like gas or diarrhea. Activated charcoal enters the digestive tract and counteracts this process by binding to byproducts and alleviating these digestive issues.

Antidote for drugs, chemicals, and poisons – Charcoal is an age-old remedy for counteracting poison in the body. If you ingest poisons such as bleach, fertilizer, or even alcohol, taking a single large dose of activated charcoal helps your body flush out the poison faster. Activated charcoal adsorbs most organic chemicals, many inorganic chemicals, drugs, pesticides, mercury, and even lead, before they harm your body. If you’re poisoned, go to the emergency room! But, there’s no reason you shouldn’t start binding a poison right away.

Rid bad breath, body odor, and skin ailments – Activated charcoal is often used in body detox products and skin products that help relieve insect stings, mushroom poisoning, poison ivy, cholera, bites, and inflammation. Body odor and bad breath is usually a result of toxins leaving the body, which is why taking activated charcoal greatly helps rid bad breath and body odor.

Anti-Aging properties – Studies show activated charcoal prevents many cellular changes associated with aging, adrenal gland, and kidney function. Famous Gerontologists discovered its powerful anti-aging properties in a study showing activated charcoal to increase the average lifespan of older test animals by approximately 34 percent. Activated charcoal slows the rate at which the brain becomes increasingly sensitive to toxins as you age, which makes for better cognitive functioning. It also builds a better defense mechanism by improving the adaptive functioning of essential organs like the liver, kidneys, and adrenals.

Better heart health – Activated charcoal helps lower the amount of total lipids, cholesterol, and triglycerides in your blood, liver, heart, and brain. In a study where patients with high cholesterol took grams of activated charcoal, three times a day, patients showed a 25% reduction in total cholesterol and doubled their HDL/LDL cholesterol ratio Studies examining microscopic tissues show a daily dose of activated charcoal helps prevent abnormal hardening (sclerosis) in heart and coronary blood vessels.

How to Use It to Detox Your Body and Feel Noticeably Better

Because activated coconut charcoal is mainly used to remove toxins from the body, it is great to use for the following purposes:

Take it when you eat out at restaurants or eat low quality foods like processed junk foods

Take it with bad coffee – it won’t fix the problem, but it helps

It is particularly helpful to take when drinking alcohol

Take it if you suddenly feel moody or tired

Opening a capsule on your toothbrush does amazing things for stained teeth

Use during pregnancy to bind toxins

Helpful for jet lag

Taking activated coconut charcoal on a daily basis is a great way to help you thrive in an overly toxin-filled environment. It is best to take it between meals and a few hours after using any vitamin or mineral supplements, as it may interfere with the absorption of these into your body. Be sure to take it away from prescription, which won’t enter your body when they bind to charcoal.